Orange Valve Tester Mark II - My experience (so far) on how it fares against other matchers/testers?

[FLUXX]

I got an Orange Tube Tester Mk2 off Sweetwater a few weeks ago, and I love it..
I tested all the tubes in the amps I bought used, and I actually found a worn tube or two.

The one strange thing I found, is that It doesn't test KT77's very well with the KT77 setting,
which sucks cuz I love KT77s and have a few amps with them.
The Mk2 tested all my best KT77's as Fail.
Then I ran the EL34 test, and it worked (Good, 5)
Go figure.

Otherwise, it's paid itself off in my mind already.
If you buy used amps, get one of these. You won't be sorry.

 

[ners]

Ordered some new 12AX7s to fuck around with some amps and here are my results...

Preferred Series 7025 (Shuguang rebranded?)

• Green = 9 blinking 7 (b side & a side)
• Microphony = 0, tapping up to 3

Tung-Sol

• Green = 11 (solid, so both sides match)
• Microphony = 0, tapping stayed at 0

Mullard

• Green = 10 blinking 11 (b & a)
• Microphony = 0, tapping 7

Mullard CV4004

• Green = 9 blinking 10 (b & a)
• Microphony = 0, tapping 0

I had used https://www.thetubestore.com/12ax7-tube-reviews-chart to decide which ones to pickup (plus whatever input I've read on threads here lately). Probably not great to infer much off single data points for each model tube, but the only tube that they rated 5/5/5 was their own and was worse than the others (who were all variations of 5/5/4 or 5/4/5 or 4/5/5).

Thinking of putting the CV4004 in V1 of my Marshall and the Tung-Sol in the PI...though little tempted to try that in a higher gain amp's V1.

 

[ners]

Was in a mood it seems, so pulled all the tubes from my Ceriatone JCM51 (Plexi + JCM800 + Super Bass mod).

EHX (V1)

• Green = 9 blinking 10
• MP = 0 tapping, maybe 1

JJ (V2)

• Green = 10, blinking 13
• MP = 0 tapping, maybe 1

JJ (V3/PI)

• Green = 11, blinking 12
• MP = 0, even with tapping

Also did the power tubes while I had it opened...

• JJ E34L = Green / 8
• JJ E34L = Green / 8

I haven't been loving this amp since I got it a month ago, doesn't sound anywhere near as good as the Plexi Reissue I had (even before I had Friedman mod it to his '68 spec). Sounds like there's a blanket over it and not enough gain.

I also didn't love the E34Ls I've tried in a couple other of my amps, so wondering if maybe they're the issue here. I may try to swapping the PI JJ to the Tung-Sol I mentioned above, but leaning more towards power tubes than preamps at the moment.

 

[Bad Brain]

haven't been loving this amp since I got it a month ago, doesn't sound anywhere near as good as the Plexi Reissue I had (even before I had Friedman mod it to his '68 spec). Sounds like there's a blanket over it and not enough gain.

Earlier ceriatones didn't have a bright cap, might want to check.

 

[ners]

Earlier ceriatones didn't have a bright cap, might want to check.

It's a new build, only like 1.5 months old. Has a 3 way switch for bright cap (100pF/none/1000pF for the plexi channel), but I feel like I read somewhere that 500pF was actually the most common plexi bright cap so maybe that's just what I had in my previous few Marshalls and am used to it (because none of the options sound right to me lol).

Having said that, threw the Tung-Sol in the PI just now and now that I know the power tubes are E34L I'm fairly confident that those are my issue (because I felt the same way about my previous two amps that I tried them in). The Tung-Sol seemed to really bring out the E34L flavor compared to the original JJ, not sure if it added clarity or just more gain (despite them both being rated at 11 by my tester). Threw the JJ back in for a quick A/B and it definitely tamed some of the E34L gainy buzzy-ness but I'm definitely going to order new (proper) EL34s for this amp.

 

[Dave L]

You might need 4700 on the bright cap for the real bite, but I know Greg Germino uses the 500 when he does bright caps.

But anyhoo, fascinating reads here, my local shop has the Orange tester and I´m taking in a box of random preamp tubes, old and new, to sort through when I get the time.

 

[Music&Chaos]

EL34s walk that line of harshness. Good for cutting through, but can be a bit much. Seems like you got it figured out. I would have thrown a Mullard in V1, a long plate in PI and I'd grab some NOS EL34s to throw in. Good luck!

 

[ners]

You might need 4700 on the bright cap for the real bite, but I know Greg Germino uses the 500 when he does bright caps.

So I emailed Dave Friedman, since he modded a previous plexi I owned to his '68 spec, and he said he prefers a 4700. My shitty soldering skills should be able to handle swapping out that 1000 for a 4700.

 

[ners]

Got some proper measurements on power tubes to compare...

Orange tester measured a pair of EL34-Bs I just put in a Marshall clone as 9 & 10, and they measured 32ma & 37ma.

So assuming the Orange tester is a linear scale then one notch off means a difference of 5ma. Would need to measure more tubes to confirm if their scale is linear; maybe I'll email them with my results.

 

[baron55]

I got an Orange Tube Tester Mk2 off Sweetwater a few weeks ago, and I love it..
I tested all the tubes in the amps I bought used, and I actually found a worn tube or two.

The one strange thing I found, is that It doesn't test KT77's very well with the KT77 setting,
which sucks cuz I love KT77s and have a few amps with them.
The Mk2 tested all my best KT77's as Fail.
Then I ran the EL34 test, and it worked (Good, 5)
Go figure.

Otherwise, it's paid itself off in my mind already.
If you buy used amps, get one of these. You won't be sorry.

I believe the reason for the KT77 fail. Is current production KT77 (JJ specifically) don't meet NOS KT77 specs (I have heard this over the years from tube gurus). All my known JJ made good, KT77 failed on the test due to low emissions. But the tubes are good and work in amps with no issues. IO wonder how the Russian KT77 would test.

Also, all my Electro Harmonics 6CA7 all fail as well. The issue is in Europe, a 6CA7 is a EL34. The 6CA7 we think of is actually a US tube that is closer to a 6L6 than a pentode, and has different specs.

 

[midnightlaundry]

How are these holding up??
Considering one for my perpetual Sweetwater Same As Cash monthly payment.

How does the Power Tube Match work? Do higher numbers indicate life left?

 

[War_in_D]

How are these holding up??
Considering one for my perpetual Sweetwater Same As Cash monthly payment.

How does the Power Tube Match work? Do higher numbers indicate life left?

Mine seems to be doing fine so far. I don't use it constantly or anything but I've used it a fair amount. Best I can figure, the power tube number is for matching (obviously), but from what I've seen online the higher the number the higher the gain. Hearing that, I would assume that the higher the number, the faster it'll break up and give you power tube distortion. At least that's they way I understand it.

 

[midnightlaundry]

That's what I wondering about. Apparently Power Tubes lose gain as they wear. Did you ever have a bad Tube with a high gain number?

 

[War_in_D]

That's what I wondering about. Apparently Power Tubes lose gain as they wear. Did you ever have a bad Tube with a high gain number?

Not that I remember off the top of my head. Most of the power tubes I've tested have been in the 6-9 range, that's either new or used.

 

[PBGas]

Coming up on almost a year with my V2 of the Orange tester. I use it on my tech bench as I get a few amps here and there to look at and fix when I have time between guitar repairs.

It has been really great and has picked off many bad and low performing tubes.
I may add the rectifier module to it as I get quite a few of those come in but I can't test them with this unit until I add that piece.

 

[FourT6and2]

Just got one from Sweetwater. Garbage. Good thing they have 30-day returns.

I tested about 20 preamp tubes with very inconsistent results. I previously tested all of these tubes in V1 of a high-gain amp, so I know which ones are noisy and which ones aren't. The Orange tester's regular test sequence is fine. Gain levels for matching seem alright. But the microphony test is all over the place. Noisy tubes in the amp test fine on the Orange. And tubes with very low noise in the amp show microphonic on the Orange tester.

I re-tested some of the tubes and got completely different results on the microphony test. The regular test seemed fairly consistent.

I then tried doing the tests in different order: noise test first and then regular sequence test. Again, different results.

I tried using a socket saver vs plugging directly into the tester. Again... different results.

This is all for the noise test. The regular test for gain and faults seemed fine.

Ultimately, this thing doesn't tell me anything a guitar amp won't.

 

[FourT6and2]

Testing power tubes now. Same thing. Inconsistent and worthless results.

Known bad tubes test good. Known good tubes test good. It did catch one worn pair of JJ EL34s, though. But a pair of bad EL34s that instantly red plate in any amp tested good lol...

Noise/microphony test showed "7" for EVERY SINGLE power tube I tested out of about 30 tubes. So I'm not sure what the point of this thing is. Tubes that are noisy as hell test 7. Tubes that are super quiet and healthy test 7. So there's no real point.

 

[ners]

Noise/microphony test showed "7" for EVERY SINGLE power tube I tested out of about 30 tubes. So I'm not sure what the point of this thing is. Tubes that are noisy as hell test 7. Tubes that are super quiet and healthy test 7. So there's no real point.

Microphony testing is only for preamp tubes...

I'm not going to say I haven't had some inconsistent results with noise testing preamps, but best 2 out of 3 has solved my problems. Also lot of variability in manually tapping them since your force is going to change every time.

 

[FourT6and2]

Microphony testing is only for preamp tubes...

Well that explains a lot lol. I totally missed that in the manual.

I'm not going to say I haven't had some inconsistent results with noise testing preamps, but best 2 out of 3 has solved my problems. Also lot of variability in manually tapping them since your force is going to change every time.

I'm not even concerned with tapping with this tester. It's more about what is the noise floor. Some tubes showed a 3 or 4 or 5 without tapping. Tap and nothing changes. Test the tube again and tester shows 0 for noise. Tap and still nothing. So not sure what to make of it.

 

[dead-pan]

Saw this: